Gamify your life with HabitRPG

Sometimes I get into a place where I got to stop talking about doing things and start actually doing them I have got a lot of things accomplished over the last month but my list is longer than ever. I am, however, back to blogging about getting things done. The latest is HabitRPG.

A while back I read an article about how companies were increasing their results dramatically by gamifying the work environment. They added achievements, levels, and turned tasks into quests. While this may seem a little silly to some, this seemed awesome to me. I even began writing a system for this myself but didn't get very far.

Two weeks ago I stumbled upon a site called Habit RPG. It is a game when the things that you are trying to accomplish are actual things in your life. Lets say you want to say write a blog post. You can just add "Create Blog Post" to your todo list and once it is done, BOOM! You get experience and some gold. You might even level up. It is surprising how effective virtual rewards are.

A couple of us have formed a party which increases adherence even more as you see your friends leveling up and getting cool stuff. After you reach level 10 you can declare your class, be it warrior, mage, rouge or healer. I am close to level 10 so my productivity of late has been higher. As a group you can get quests from a random drop when you do a task or by purchasing them with in game currency. We are all excited about going on a quest but we have yet to get the drop.

Drops can happen when you complete a task. These tasks fall into 3 different categories: Habits, Dailies, and To Dos. A habit is anything that you want to do on a regular basis. This is also an easy way to farm points. I have things like drinking a glass of water and doing pushups. Dailies are things you want to do every day like taking vitamins or clocking in at work. These give benefits as you do them multiple times in a row. They can also hurt you if you miss them. To Do's are your list of unique tasks to accomplish like replacing a headlight or writing a letter. If you leave a To Do on your list too long it will start to take away hit points but it will also be worth more points so thus a bigger incentive to do the older things first.

Finally there are rewards. These are things that you can either set yourself, so you can reward your own hard work, or purchase from the game. If you are a gamer you understand that it doesn't matter if it is digital, having sweet gear is awesome! The only way to get the gear is to actually get things done... IN. REAL. LIFE. This is a win for me and for my wife. Cleaning the house is a great way to farm up some levels.
 
I have found that keeping tasks small is the best way to keep the game fun so I put little tasks on the list and feel good when I get to check a bunch of them off. Especially as the levels get longer. This keeps me focused on the small pieces that make up the whole. I also use this for work and feel doubly good about my day when I get things accomplished and level up! There is so much more but you should discover it for yourself.

Check it out if you like and get ahold of me if you want an invite to our party. Maybe we could do some questing together.

Time to check off a To Do!

-jb